1. “God in three persons, blessed Trinity” is the last line in the great hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy,” written by Reginald Heber, an Anglican minister, for Trinity Sunday. The tune is called Nicaea, named after the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. (On the history of this hymn, see Kenneth W. Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories [Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1982], pp. 94–95.) The phrase “blessed Trinity” from this hymn haunted me—in a good way—from my early days. I discovered that it was widely used in the ancient Church before its divisions, and has continued to be ever since, across the diverse theologies of the Church worldwide. It is ancient and modern and ecumenical. “The blessed Trinity” speaks of the goodness, the rich and abounding fullness, and the overflowing life of the Father, Son, and Spirit; and I think it speaks of the hope that this “blessed” life holds the secret of ours.
2. Throughout this book, the numbers in parentheses are the page numbers of material quoted from The Shack. There are two editions of The Shack with different paginations. I am using the pagination from the second edition, which generally is two numbers higher than the first edition.
3. Roux is a French cooking term taken up by the Cajuns. In a heavy pot, butter or oil is heated and flour is added, while stirring constantly. When the flour is golden or brown, bell pepper, onion, and celery, the “Holy Trinity” of Cajun cooking, are added. When the vegetables wilt, stock is added. The flavors of the roux permeate whatever is then added to the pot.
4. For more of my thoughts on “I am not,” see my lecture series “Inside the Soul: An Anatomy of Darkness.” This series is available on our website, perichoresis.org.
5. From Paul’s personal journal. See theshackbook.com/willie.
6. See James Hollis, The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1998); and Hollis, The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife (Toronto: Inner City Books, 1993). See also C. Baxter Kruger, Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2007; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), pp. 7ff.
7. Adapted from William Congreve’s poem “The Mourning Bride,” 1697.
8. 1 Peter 1:8.
9. See John 10:10.
10. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is the title of Lewis’s autobiography (London and New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956).
11. From Bruce Cockburn’s song “Mystery,” on the album Life Short Call Now (True North Records, 2006).
12. On “The Great Sadness,” see pp. 14, 18, 26, 27, 66, 76, 81, 94, 98, 103, 116, 117, 118, 163, 171, 198.
13. C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (New York: Bantam, 1976), p. 32.
14. The imagery of “watchful dragons” comes from C. S. Lewis’s essay “Sometimes Fairy Stories Say Best What’s to Be Said,” in On Stories, and Other Essays on Literature, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1982), p. 47. I am grateful to Cary Stockett for sharing the image with me.
15. This conference, “Rediscovering Jesus,” is available on our website, perichoresis.org, and through thegreatdance.org.
1. King David, review of The Shack, Leadershipjournal.net.
2. See Luke 15. On the father and his prodigal and religious sons, see my book Parable of the Dancing God, available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org. It is also available through InterVarsity Press.
3. Luke 15:1 The Message.
4. Luke 19:5.
5. Luke 15:2.
1. For a great song on this, see Dave Ligenfelter, “Free to Be Me,” available at songsfromtheshack.com.
2. C. S. Lewis, The Grand Miracle and Other Selected Essays on Theology and Ethics from “God in the Dock, ” ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Ballantine Books, 1970), p. 156.
3. C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), p. 4.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 11.
6. Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life is the title of Lewis’s autobiography (London: Harcourt, Brace, 1956).
7. Much of this chapter is a reworking of my essay “From Ghosts to Persons: C. S. Lewis’ Vision of the Christian Life.” This essay is available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org.
8. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 4.
9. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 16.
10. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, pp. 12–13.
11. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), pp. 139–40.
12. Ibid., p. 140.
13. Ibid.
14. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 12.
15. Ibid., p. 11.
16. Ibid., p. 8.
17. Ibid., p. 9.
18. Ibid., p. 10.
19. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, p. 230.
20. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 153.
21. Ibid.
1. This story was originally published in my book The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), pp. 81ff.
1. See C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1956), p. 181; and Lewis’s introduction to George MacDonald’s Lilith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. xi.
2. For more here, see my book The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), pp. 88ff.
3. Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust), p. 9.
4. Jerry Falwell ranks Edwards’s sermon first in his book 25 of the Greatest Sermons Ever Preached (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983). Note George MacDonald’s lament: “From all copies of Jonathan Edwards’ portrait of God, however faded by time, however softened by the use of less glaring pigments, I turn with loathing.” In his Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III (Whitethorn, CA: Johannesen, 1999), p. 540.
5. In Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 40.
6. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1963), §6.
7. Ibid., §6.
1. This is the subtitle of Thomas F. Torrance’s book The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988).
2. Genesis 1:1.
3. John 1:14.
4. John 1:18, my italics.
5. Here, see Thomas F. Torrance, Space, Time and Resurrection (Edinburgh: Handsel Press, 1976), pp. 42ff.
1. See Exodus 33:18–23.
2. See Hebrews 9:1ff.
3. John 3:16–17, my italics.
4. Matthew 7:29.
5. John 7:46.
6. Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus (Naperville, IL: Alec R. Allenson, 1967), p. 112.
7. John 3:3, my translation. See also 1:51; 3:5, 11; 5:19, 24, 25; Matthew 5:18, 26; 8:10; Mark 3:28; 8:12; 9:1, 41; Luke 4:24; 12:37.
8. Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology (New York: Scribner’s, 1975), p. 253. See, for example, Matthew 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44.
9. See Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, pp. 11ff. It is to be noted that there are more than 250 references to God as Father in the New Testament.
10. See Isaiah 63:16; 64:8.
11. See 2 Samuel 7:14.
12. See Luke 15:11–32.
13. See Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.
14. See Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, pp. 55–57; and Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1966), pp. 5–6.
15. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), p. 23.
16. Joachim Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, p. 62. “We can say quite definitely that there is no analogy at all in the whole literature of Jewish prayer for God being addressed as Abba,” p. 57. In another work, The Central Message of the New Testament, Jeremias comments, “To a Jewish mind it would have been irreverent and therefore unthinkable to call God by this familiar word” (New York: Scribner’s, 1965), p. 21.
17. Note Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, pp. 26ff; William C. Placher, Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), pp. 58ff.; and James Barr, “ ‘Abba’ Isn’t ‘Daddy,’ ” Journal of Theological Studies 39 (1988): 47.
18. See Jeremias, New Testament Theology, pp. 61ff.; Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, pp. 18–29; and Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament, p. 17.
19. See John 5:17ff. and 10:33.
20. Luke 2:49, my italics.
21. John 2:16, my italics.
22. Matthew 3:17, my translation. This declaration is a conflation of three Old Testament statements: Genesis 22:2; Psalm 2:7; and Isaiah 42:1. For more on this declaration, see Thomas A. Smail, The Forgotten Father (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1980), p. 77.
23. Mark 1:11 and 9:7; Luke 2:22 and 9:35; Matthew 3:17 and 17:5.
24. John 5:18.
25. See John 1:18.
26. P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1909), p. 285.
27. See John 2:13ff.
28. John 4:34.
29. Mark 14:36, my translation.
30. John 8:28. See also 8:26, 38, 40.
31. John 5:30.
32. John 14:10.
33. John 5:20.
34. John 5:19.
35. John 8:29.
36. See also John 3:35.
37. See Matthew 28:18.
38. See John 5:22, 26.
39. John 16:15.
40. Jeremias, The Prayers of Jesus, p. 51.
41. See John 14:10–11, 20.
42. John 12:44–45.
43. John 14:9.
44. John 10:30.
1. Of the generally recognized 89 times ruach refers to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, only 9 are masculine, and not without some ambiguity. The other 80 are feminine, 44 of which (including Genesis 1:2 and throughout Judges) are accompanied by feminine verbs, et cetera. For more here, see R. P. Nettlehorst, “Appendix 3: The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament,” http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume3/spirit.htm.
2. Blaise Pascal, Pensees: Thoughts on Religion and Other Subjects (New York: Washington Square Press, 1965), 277.
3. Acts 9:3ff.
4. 1 Corinthians 2:1–5.
5. See Paul Young’s essay “The Beauty of Ambiguity,” posted on his official website, windrumors.com.
6. See C. S. Lewis, “Transposition,” in The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), p. 28.
7. See 1 Corinthians 2:14.
8. Recall Papa’s comment to Mackenzie, “The problem is that many folks try to grasp some sense of who I am by taking the best version of themselves, projecting that to the nth degree, factoring in all the goodness they can perceive, which often isn’t much, and then call that God” (98).
9. See Acts 5:3; 7:51; Acts 5:6; Ephesians 4:30; Hebrews 10:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:19; Matthew 12:31; Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10; Mark 3:29, respectively.
10. See John 1:14.
11. See Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35.
12. See Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32.
13. See Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4:1, 14.
14. See Luke 10:21.
15. See Matthew 12:28.
16. See Matthew 3:16–17; Mark 1:10–11; Luke 3:22.
17. See Hebrews 9:14.
18. Cited by Thomas F. Torrance in The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 328.
19. See Genesis 1:2.
20. See Acts 2:1ff.
21. See John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God (London: SCM Press, 1972).
22. Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009), p. 169.
23. Romans 14:17.
24. Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 1 Samuel 10:6, 10; 11:6; 16:13, 14; 1 Kings 18:12; 22:24; 2 Kings 2:16; 2 Chronicles 18:23; 20:14; Isaiah 11:2; 40:13; 61:1; 63:14; Ezekiel 11:5; 37:1; Micah 3:8.
25. Genesis 1:2; Exodus 31:3; 35:31; Numbers 24:2; 1 Samuel 19:20, 23; 2 Samuel 23:2; Job 33:4; Ezekiel 11:24.
26. Psalm 51:11; Isaiah 63:10, 11.
27. Exodus 28:3; Deuteronomy 34:9.
28. Nehemiah 9:20; Psalm 143:10.
29. Zechariah 12:10.
30. Genesis 6:3; Isaiah 30:1; 42:1; 59:21; Ezekiel 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28, 29; Haggai 2:5; Zechariah 4:6.
31. Genesis 1:1–2.
32. Genesis 1:26.
33. Genesis 2:7.
34. Job 33:4; see also Genesis 6:3.
35. Psalm 33:6.
36. See John 6:63; 2 Corinthians 3:6.
37. See Judges 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14.
38. See Genesis 41:38f.; Daniel 4:8ff.; Exodus 31:3; 35:31; Numbers 11:17ff.; Deuteronomy 34:9.
39. See Exodus 35:30f.
40. See Numbers 11:17ff.; 2 Chronicles 24:20; Nehemiah 9:30; Ezekiel 2:12, 14, 24; 8:3; 11:1, 5, 25; Micah 3:8.
41. See 1 Samuel 10:6, 10; 16:13; 2 Samuel 2:23; 2 Chronicles 20:14.
42. See Exodus 6:7; Leviticus 26:13; Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4; 24:7; 30:22; 31:1, 33; 32:38; Ezekiel 11:20; 14:11; 36:28; 37:27; Hosea 1:10; 2:23; Zechariah 2:11.
43. John 17:3, my italics.
44. See Deuteronomy 18:15ff.
45. See Isaiah 49:1–6.
46. See 1 Peter 1:11.
47. See Ezekiel 11:16–20; 36:22–30; Jeremiah 31:27–34; 32:37–41.
48. John 1:19.
49. John 1:23.
50. Mark 1:7–8.
51. John 1:32–34.
52. See Acts 2:17 and Joel 2:28–29.
53. See John 16:8–11.
54. See Matthew 1:18, 20; Luke 1:35.
55. Romans 5:5 NEB.
56. See John 16:14.
57. See Thomas A. Smail, The Giving Gift: The Holy Spirit in Person (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988), pp. 89ff.
58. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (London: SCM Press, 1981), p. 176.
59. See Matthew 4:1ff.; Mark 1:12ff.; Luke 4:1ff.
60. See Matthew 4:3ff.; Luke 4:3ff.
61. See Matthew 11:27; John 1:18; 14:20.
62. Augustine, On the Trinity, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), VI.5.7; V.11; XV.19.37. See also C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), p. 152.
63. See Isaiah 63:10 and Ephesians 4:30.
64. See Acts 13:2.
65. See 1 Corinthians 2:11.
66. See Ephesians 6:18; John 4:24; Philippians 3:3.
67. See Romans 15:30.
68. See Galatians 4:6.
69. See 2 Corinthians 3:8 and Romans 8:27; 1 Corinthians 12:11; Hebrews 2:4.
70. See John 16:3; Acts 8:29; 10:19; 11:12, 28; 13:2; Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22; 14:13.
71. See Acts 15:28; 20:28; 1 Corinthians 12:4–11.
72. See Acts 2:17–18; 4:8, 31; 2 Peter 1:21.
73. See John 16:8; Ephesians 3:5; Galatians 4:6; 5:22–23.
74. See Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:2; Acts 9:31; 2 Corinthians 3:17; and Galatians 5:18; 2 Corinthians 13:13; Acts 13:52; Romans 8:6.
75. See Galatians 5:22–23.
1. Deuteronomy 6:4.
2. John 19:15.
3. John 20:28.
4. See Athanasius, “Against the Arians,” in Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, vol. 4 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd ser., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wallace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). For more on the debate between Athanasius and Arius, see Khaled Anatolios, Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought (London: Routledge, 1998).
5. See John Zizioulas, Being as Communion (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1985), pp. 27ff.; and Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 73ff.
6. For a detailed discussion of the meaning of perichoresis, see Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 168ff.
7. Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (London: SCM Press, 1981), p. 175.
8. For more of my thoughts on the oneness of the Father, Son, and Spirit, see my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2002), pp. 18ff.
9. Pierce Pettis, from the song “Family,” on Chase the Buffalo (High Street Records, 1993).
10. “We must not think of this, however, as if we have to do with three individual persons who have some independent existence prior to the mutual relatedness and perichoretic interpenetration. The perichoresis is eternal. It is given in the very being of God. To be God is to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit in eternal perichoretic koinonia.” Trevor Hart, Regarding Karl Barth (Carlisle, England: Paternoster Press, 1999), p. 113.
1. Richard of St. Victor, “Book Three of the Trinity,” in Richard of St. Victor, trans. Grover A. Zinn (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), chap. 2ff.
2. C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), p. 151.
3. Richard of St. Victor, “Book Three of the Trinity,” chap. 2.
4. For more on creation as our benefit, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics III/1, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), pp. 330–44.
5. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), p. 127.
6. See 1 John 4:8, 16.
7. Jonathan Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1982), p. 327.
8. For a powerful critique of such a disastrous notion, see George MacDonald’s sermon “Justice,” in his Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III (Whitethorn, CA: Johannesen, 1999), pp. 500ff.
9. Mark 9:24.
10. The Orations of St. Athanasius Against the Arians (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden, and Welsh), I.18.
11. MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 421.
12. Colin E. Gunton, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Toward a Fully Trinitarian Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2003), p. 86.
13. Lewis, The Four Loves, p. 126.
14. Romans 8:38–39.
15. MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 431.
16. For more of my thoughts here, see my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2002), pp. 17ff.
17. Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter: Spe Salvi, 47, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html.
18. For a treatment of holiness as relational and trinitarian, see John Webster, Holiness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).
19. For more on the legal view of holiness and how it has shaped the way we understand God and his relationship with humanity, see my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, pp. 43ff.
20. See 2 Corinthians 5:21.
1. See John 1:18.
2. See John 17:24.
3. See John 1:1.
4. See John 1:14.
5. Trevor Hart, “Humankind in Christ and Christ in Humankind: Salvation as Participation in Our Substitute in the Theology of John Calvin,” in the Scottish Journal of Theology, vol. 42, p. 72.
6. Acts 7:55–56.
7. Acts 1:9–11.
8. On the ascension of Jesus, see Matthew 26:64; Luke 24:50ff.; John 6:62; 14:28; 15:5, 10, 17, 28; 20:17; Acts 1:9–11; 2:33ff.; 7:55–56; Ephesians 1:18ff.; 2:4ff.; 4:8; Philippians 3:20; 1 Timothy 3:16; 1 Peter 3:22; Hebrews 1:1–3; 4:14; 6:17–20; 8:1–16; 9:11–12; 12:2; cf. Matthew 22:41–44; Isaiah 6:1ff.; 52:13; Psalm 68:18; 110:1–5.
9. John 16:28.
10. For more on the growth and development of Jesus, see Thomas A. Smail, The Giving Gift: The Holy Spirit in Person (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988), pp. 95ff.
11. See William Milligan, The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of Our Lord (Greenwood, SC: Attic Press, 1977), pp. 30ff.; and Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, ed. Robert T. Walker (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2009), pp. 264ff.
12. Irenaeus, “Against the Heresies,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), III.17.7; IV.38.2. See also C. S. Lewis, Miracles (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), pp. 147–48.
13. For more on the ascension of Jesus, see Gerritt Scott Dawson, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2004).
14. John 1:1–4.
15. Colossians 1:16–17.
16. Hebrews 1:1–3; see also Acts 17:28 and 1 Corinthians 8:6–7.
17. Thomas Merton, The New Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961), p. 137.
18. John Calvin, The Gospel According to John, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), pp. 10–11. For more on Calvin’s view of Christ as mediator of Creation, see Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), pp. 55ff.
19. See Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1963), §6.
20. Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 183. Note also Colin E. Gunton’s comment: “There is already and always a relationship between the Son of God and the world and it now, uniquely, takes the form of personal presence.” The Christian Faith (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2002), p. 98.
21. For more on our inclusion in Jesus, see my essay “The Truth of all Truths,” available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org. See also my books God Is For Us (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 1995), pp. 40ff.; The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), pp. 41ff.; and Home (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 1996), pp. 7ff.
22. Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, p. 183.
23. 1 Corinthians 1:30.
24. For more on Jesus including us in his world, see my book Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2007; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), pp. xv, 39ff.
25. For more on this story and its meaning, see my book Home, pp. 12ff. This book is available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org.
26. See Acts 17:27ff.
27. See Romans 5:12ff.
28. 2 Corinthians 5:14. “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). See also Romans 6:3–8, and my book The Great Dance, pp. 42ff.
29. “He has made an end of us as sinners and therefore of sin itself by going to death as the One who took our place as sinners. In His person He has delivered up us sinners and sin itself to destruction. He has removed us sinners and sin, negated us, cancelled us out: ourselves, our sin, and the accusation, condemnation and perdition which has overtaken us…. The man of sin, the first Adam, the cosmos alienated from God, the ‘present evil world’ (Gal 1:4), was taken and killed and buried in and with Him on the cross.” Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), V/I, pp. 253–54. See appendix A for some beautiful quotes from a diverse group of Christian writers on our death and resurrection in Jesus.
30. 2 Corinthians 5:19.
31. 1 Peter 1:3.
32. Note Thomas F. Torrance, who says Jesus “was so one with us that when he died we died, for he did not die for himself but for us, and he did not die alone, but we died in him as those whom he had bound to himself inseparably by his incarnation. Therefore when he rose again we rose in him and with him, and when he presented himself before the face of the Father, he presented us also before God, so that we are already accepted of God in him once and for all.” In Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ, p. 152.
33. Ephesians 2:4–7.
34. F. J. Huegel, The Enthroned Christian (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1992), p. 59.
35. C. S. Lewis, Miracles, p. 148. I am grateful to Roger Newell for this reference. See Roger J. Newell, The Feeling Intellect: Reading the Bible with C. S. Lewis (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010).
36. See John 14:1–6.
1. 1:3.
2. See Ephesians 1:20.
3. See Ephesians 2:6.
4. For more on Ephesians 1:3–5, see my book God Is For Us, and my lecture series “You Are the Child the Father Always Wanted,” both available on our website, perichoresis.org.
5. Markus Barth, Ephesians, Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1974), p. 80.
6. Eugene Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2002).
7. See Romans 8:15–17.
8. Ephesians 1:3–5.
9. For a beautiful and extended treatment of election and predestination, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), vols. II.2, pp. 94ff; IV.2, pp. 31ff., and IV.1, pp. 21ff. For a simple introduction to Barth’s theology, see Herbert Hartwell, The Theology of Karl Barth: An Introduction (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1964).
10. Ken Blue’s summation in a phone conversation about predestination. Used with permission.
11. See B. F. Westcott, “The Gospel of Creation,” in his Commentary on the Epistles of St. John, 1892.
12. Barth’s treatment of “the election of Jesus Christ” is one of the greatest contributions to Christian thought. See earlier note for details.
13. See Athanasius, “Against the Arians,” in Athanasius: Select Works and Letters, vol. 4 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wallace (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 75–77.
14. 2 Timothy 1:9.
15. See Revelation 1:8; 21:6; 22:13.
1. See John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), II.12.1.
2. For a beautiful treatment of creation, see Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 80ff.; and Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), pp. 76ff.
3. John 8:12.
4. See Kallistos Ware, “God of the Fathers: C. S. Lewis and Eastern Christianity,” in The Pilgrim’s Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art of Witness, ed. David Mills (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 62–63. “This is the Orthodox approach to the realm of nature. Creation is seen as a sacrament of the divine presence; the cosmos is a vast and all-embracing Burning Bush, permeated with the fire of God’s eternal glory.”
5. The analogy comes from C. S. Lewis. See The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), p. 13; and Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952), p. 140.
6. Romans 8:19–20, The Message.
7. John 6:12.
8. Thomas Merton, The New Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961), p. 137.
9. For more of my thoughts on Adam and Eve, see my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2002), pp. 23ff.
10. This beautiful phrase is from Thomas F. Torrance. See his essay “The Word of God and the Response of Man,” in God and Rationality (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 149. See also Thomas F. Torrance, “Salvation Is of the Jews,” Evangelical Quarterly 22 (1950): 166; and Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), p. 42; as well as my essay “On the Road to Becoming Flesh: Israel as the Womb of the Incarnation in the Theology of T. F. Torrance,” available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org.
11. For more of my thoughts on evil and the fall of Adam and Eve, see my books The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), pp. 67ff.; and Home (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 1996), pp. 27ff.
12. Revelation 12:9.
13. John 8:44.
14. See Genesis 3:4ff.
15. The next several paragraphs are mostly excerpts from my book Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2007; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), pp. 23ff.
16. The phrase “the abyss of non-being” is from Dr. Bruce Wauchope’s lecture “The Gospel and Mental Health.” This lecture is available at perichoresis.org.
17. See 1 Corinthians 2:14.
1. Most of what follows here is an excerpt from my essay “Bearing Our Scorn: Jesus and the Way of Trinitarian Love.” This essay is available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org.
2. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1963), §6.
3. See Genesis 3:21.
4. Anselm, Cur Deus Homo (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1909), XXI.
5. Ibid., XI, XX, XXIII.
6. Matthew 11:27 NLT.
7. Romans 3:23.
8. Note Jesus’ or John’s comment: “What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony” (John 3:32).
9. John 12:46, my italics.
10. For more on our fallen mind and inability to know the Father, see my book Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2007; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), pp. 7ff.
11. Ibid., pp. 21ff.
1. My discussion of the relationship between the Lord and Israel is greatly influenced by the work of Thomas F. Torrance. For a thorough treatment of Torrance’s vision of Israel, see my essay “On the Road to Becoming Flesh: Israel as the Womb of the Incarnation in the Theology of T. F. Torrance.” It is available as a free download at perichoresis.org. Of particular interest here is Torrance’s The Mediation of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), chap. 1 and 2; and his essays “The Word of God and the Response of Man,” in God and Rationality (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 137ff.; “Salvation Is of the Jews,” pp. 164ff., and “Israel and the Incarnation,” in Judaica (1957), vol. 13, pp. 1–18.
2. Luke 5:8.
3. Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p. 38. Note the fuller quotation: “So long as the cords of the covenant were not drawn tight, and God remained, so to speak, at a distance, the conflict was not very sharp, but the closer God drew the more the human self-will of Israel asserted itself in resistance to its divine vocation. Thus the more fully God gave himself to this people, the more he forced it to be what it actually was, what we all are, in the self-willed isolation of fallen humanity from God. Thus the movement of God’s reconciling love toward Israel not only revealed Israel’s sin but intensified it.”
4. See Thomas F. Torrance, “The Word of God and the Response of Man,” pp. 137ff.
5. Ibid., p. 147.
6. See Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, p. 28.
7. Ibid.
8. Note Torrance’s amazing comment in The Mediation of Christ, p. 38: “That intensification, however, is not to be regarded simply as an accidental result of the covenant but rather as something which God deliberately took into the full design of his reconciling activity, for it was the will and the way of God’s grace to effect reconciliation with man at his very worst, precisely in his state of rebellion against God. That is to say, in his marvelous wisdom and love God worked out in Israel a way of reconciliation which does not depend on the worth of men and women, but makes their very sin in rebellion against him the means by which he binds them forever to himself and through which he reconstitutes their relations with him in such a way that their true end is fully and perfectly realised in unsullied communion with himself.” See also Thomas F. Torrance, “Israel and the Incarnation,” pp. 6ff.
1. John 1:14 KJV.
2. For more on “glory” as the essential nature of a person or thing, see David Kowalick’s lectures on “The Hope of Glory.” These lectures are available at perichoresis.org and at included.com.au.
3. This section is largely a reproduction of my essay “Bearing Our Scorn: Jesus and the Way of Trinitarian Love.” This essay is available as a free download on our website, perichoresis.org.
4. See Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology (New York: Scribner’s, 1975), p. 253.
5. See, for example, Matthew 5:22, 28, 32, 34, 39, 44.
6. John 11:48.
7. See Luke 20:20 and Matthew 26:59.
8. John 11:53; cf. Matthew 28:11–15.
9. See John 19:25–26.
10. I am using “we” here in the corporate sense of humanity as a race, and of “our” presence represented in the people responding to Jesus.
11. John 1:3.
12. John 1:11.
13. Pierce Pettis, “Miriam,” from the album Making Light of It (Compass Records, 1996).
14. John 6:42.
15. See John 8:41.
16. See John 1:33 and Isaiah 11:2.
17. See John 7:20; 8:48, 52; 10:20.
18. See John 10:11.
19. See Ephesians 1:4–5.
20. See John 7:12.
21. John 1:11 KJV; see Luke 23:18, 21; John 19:6.
22. See Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), vol. IV.1, pp. 211ff.
23. See Matthew 27:51; Luke 23:44–45; Mark 15:33.
24. See Matthew 21:33–46.
25. John 19:15, my italics.
26. For more on the legalistic bent of the Western Church, see my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2002), chap. 1 and 2.
27. “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up” (Matthew 20:18–19). See also Matthew 16:21; Mark 10:33–34; Luke 24:7; and Hebrews 12:3.
28. Here, see Stricken by God?, ed. Bradley Jersak and Michael Hardin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), especially the essays by Brad Jersak, Michael Hardin, Richard Rohr, and James Alison. For my treatment of Jesus’ cry “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” see my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, pp. 58ff.
29. On Isaiah 53:2–7, see The New Jerusalem Bible and Eugene Peterson, The Message. The key word in v. 6 is paga, “to meet, encounter, or fall upon”: “The Lord caused the iniquity of us all to meet, encounter, fall upon (paga) him.” On Isaiah 53:10, note The New English Bible, “Yet the LORD took thought for his tortured servant and healed him who had made himself a sacrifice for sin; so shall he enjoy long life and see his children’s children, and in his hand the LORD ’s cause shall prosper.”
30. See Acts 2:23.
31. See Matthew 26:53.
32. I am not suggesting here, of course, that anyone stay in an abusive relationship. I am only giving an analogy that helps us see how the Lord loves and endures us in our blindness in order to reach the real us.
33. Roger J. Newell, The Feeling Intellect: Reading the Bible with C. S. Lewis (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), p. 34.
34. Isaiah 53:3.
35. Matthew 20:18.
36. See 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8.
37. C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), p. 127.
38. Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:33; Luke 22:44, respectively.
39. Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36, respectively, my translation and emphasis. See also Luke 22:42.
40. Matthew 26:45.
41. Matthew 27:42–43.
42. See Isaiah 53:6, and previous note.
43. John 1:29.
44. Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.
45. See John McLeod Campbell, The Nature of the Atonement (London: Macmillan, 1878), pp. 237ff.; and my book Jesus and the Undoing of Adam, pp. 58ff. Note George MacDonald’s insight: “It was a cry in desolation, but it came out of Faith. It is the last voice of Truth speaking when it can but cry. The divine horror of that moment is unfathomable by the human soul. It was blackness of darkness. And yet he would believe. Yet he would hold fast. God was his God yet. My God—and in the cry came forth the Victory, and all was over soon. Of the peace that followed that cry, the peace of a perfect soul, large as the universe, pure as light, ardent as life, victorious for God and his brethren, he himself alone can ever know the breadth and length, and depth and height.” “The Eloi,” in Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III (Whitethorn, CA: Johannesen, 1999), p. 112.
46. Psalm 22:24.
47. Note Isaiah 53:4: “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”
48. Luke 23:46.
1. Irenaeus, “Against the Heresies,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. v.
2. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), IV.17.2.
3. James B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press), p. 21.
4. 2 Corinthians 8:9.
5. For more on the “wonderful exchange” in the thought of the early church, see Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), pp. 179ff.
6. Gregory Nazianzen, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd series, vol. 7 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), Oration 38.13.
7. See Hebrews 2:17. For a beautiful song on the priesthood of Jesus, see Glen Soderholm, “Our Great High Priest,” from the album By Faint Degrees (Moveable Feast Music), available at glensoderholm.com.
8. For more here, see my book Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2007; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), p. 41.
9. See John 3:16; 5:22.
10. Elizabeth Rooney, from the poem “Hurting,” in A Widening Light: Poems of the Incarnation, ed. Luci Shaw (Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 1994), p. 99.
11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, ed. E. Bethge, enlarged ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 361.
12. See Hebrews 5:7–8.
13. Hebrews 4:16.
14. Hebrews 12:3.
15. Genesis 3:9.
16. John 8:29.
17. Luke 23:46, my translation.
18. John 11:48–49.
19. 1 John 3:8.
20. Hebrews 2:14–15.
21. Ephesians 6:11.
22. Roger J. Newell, The Feeling Intellect: Reading the Bible with C. S. Lewis (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010), p. 32.
23. MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 537.
24. See Matthew 12:29; Mark 3:27.
25. Romans 8:3; Colossians 2:15; and Ephesians 4:8, respectively.
26. Nazianzen, Orations, I.5.
27. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word of God (London: A. R. Mowbray, 1963), §54.
1. See John 14:16ff.
2. John 14:20. See also my book Home, pp. 7ff.
3. See John 8:31–32.
4. Thomas Merton, The New Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1961), p. 138.
5. Colossians 1:27.
6. For more on our participation in Jesus’ life with his Father in the Spirit, see my books The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), pp. 53ff.; and The Secret (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 1997).
7. See John 2:1ff.
8. Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 86.
9. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), IV.I.7.
10. James B. Torrance, Worship, Community and the Triune God of Grace (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), p. 21.
11. For more on how our ordinary lives are a participation in Jesus’ life, see my book The Great Dance, pp. 47ff.
1. John 8:12, my translation and emphasis.
2. Note Thomas F. Torrance’s comment: “In Jesus Christ the Covenant faithfulness of God has been met and answered by a Covenant faithfulness within our humanity, so that that divine-human faithfulness forms the very content and substance of the fulfilled Covenant which is the New Covenant. Thus the Covenant relationship is now filled with the relationship or communion between the Son and the Father, and it is in that communion that we are given to share by the Spirit.” From Conflict and Agreement in the Church, vol. 2 (London: Lutterworth Press, 1960), pp. 122–23.
3. John 17:3.
4. For more on pantheism and deism, see my book The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), pp. 68ff. and 94ff.
5. For a beautiful song on Jesus as the center of it all, see Vanessa Kersting, “Centre of It All,” from the album For All the Times, available at iTunes and at vanessakersting.com.
6. See John 1:13.
7. John 15:4–6.
8. Luke 9:25, The Message. See also Matthew 16:2.
9. John 1:38.
10. George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons: Series I, II, III (Whitethorn, CA: Johannesen, 1999), p. 371.
11. John 15:9, The Message.
1. John 1:29, 33.
2. See Hebrews 5:8.
3. See Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 155.
4. Thomas F. Torrance, “Come, Creator Spirit,” in Theology in Reconstruction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), p. 246; see also Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, p. 189.
5. Irenaeus, “Against the Heresies,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), III.17.1; see also III.20.2; III.18.7; III.19.1; and IV.20.4.
6. The phrase is from Thomas F. Torrance in his essay “Our Oneness in Christ and Disunity as Churches,” in Conflict and Agreement in the Church, vol. 1 (London: Lutterworth Press, 1960), p. 266.
7. See Joel 2:28ff. and Acts 2:17ff.
8. John 16:8–9.
9. See Romans 8:16.
10. For more on the two knowings within us, see my book The Great Dance: The Christian Vision Revisited (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2000; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2005), chap. 4 and 5.
11. George MacDonald, “The Fantastic Imagination,” in The Complete Fairy Tales, ed. U. C. Knoepflmacher (New York: Penguin, 1999), p. 9.
12. See Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 23. I am grateful to Lance Muir for this reference.
13. Saint Hilary of Poitiers, “On the Trinity,” in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), I.18.
14. Galatians 4:6, my italics.
15. Romans 12:2.
16. Romans 15:13.
17. George MacDonald, Lilith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 26.
18. Matthew 5:3–4.
19. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985), III.2.133.
20. MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, p. 19.
21. Ibid., 529.
22. Ibid., pp. 18–19.
23. See Hebrews 4:12.
24. Hans Urs von Balthasar, Credo (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 1990), p. 71.
25. See Luke 3:16.
26. For more on the crisis of Jesus in our lives, see my book Across All Worlds: Jesus Inside Our Darkness (Jackson, MS: Perichoresis Press, 2007; Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007), pp. 51ff.
27. For a wise and beautiful discussion of the pain of Jesus’ liberating judgment, see Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter: Spe Salvi, 47.
28. Steve Bell, “Burning Ember,” from the album Burning Ember (Peg Music, 1998), available at stevebell.com.
29. See Galatians 1:16.
30. See Zechariah 12:10 and John 19:37. See also Richard Rohr’s essay “The Franciscan Opinion,” in Stricken by God?, ed. Bradley Jersak and Michael Hardin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 206ff.
31. Hebrews 4:13.
32. Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter: Spe Salvi, 47.
33. See 1 Corinthians 13.
34. Ephesians 4:13.
35. For a careful and honest treatment of hope, hell, and judgment, see Bradley Jersak, Her Gates Will Never Be Shut (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2009).